3 ms·

This trend will be interesting. We mainly abandoned the practice in the late 1960’s and turned more towards policing by the 1980’s. Mental institutions got a re

This trend will be interesting. We mainly abandoned the practice in the late 1960’s and turned more towards policing by the 1980’s. Mental institutions got a really bad reputation and some of it justified as we were committing people for things like being gay. Lobotomies became unbelievably common. The whole concept was scary. So today there’s a general distaste for policing tactics which although very effective, people seem to be souring on the costs - high prison populations, a feeling of profiling, and suspected unfair treatment of certain demographics. Criminal justice is in a crisis right now and people demand change. So things like this have been becoming popular. I wonder how long it will be before it’s widespread and prison budgets are rerouted to mental health facilities? I’m most curious about what will be considered a mental health issue and how politicized that will be. I’m very cautiously optimistic that it could be a change for the better if administrated well.

tadfisher 6y ago
Can we not learn from the several dozen other democracies with both lower prison populations and lower overall crime rates? I'm curious how the US is so unique in this regard.
- chmod775 6y ago
  > I'm curious how the US is so unique in this regard. Culture, policing attitude, guns and the fact that the only thing lesser than the training US police officers receive is the bar to becoming one. In most western countries becoming a police officer is a multi-year selective process, with lots and lots of training for conflict resolution, lessons on psychology, and of course the law. In the US you can be let loose on the streets in as little as 3 months. Then once you're past the street level, the US also imposes much higher sentences on average, and punishment continues even after your sentence is served - by marking you as a felon for the rest of your life and locking you out of many opportunities for leading a normal life. Hello to high recidivism rates. The prison term itself, the punishment, is also just that: punishment. Prison conditions are inhumane. If you treat humans as something lesser, they will behave accordingly. That's the rough picture.
  - vmception 6y ago
    The “guns” thing is annoying, because they are so easily accessible that means collective punishment of escalating force for the rest of us at all times because we could have a gun
    - Vecr 6y ago
      "The rest of us"? I'd prefer the police discuss among themselves the rare cases where someone did not have a gun, regardless of race.
      - vmception 6y ago
        In my world it would not be rare for people to not have a gun It should be obvious that I wouldn’t know with concealed carry But on the legal concealed carry side, getting that approved is extremely rare. All the densely populated counties are like that, in the whole country.

tadfisher 6y ago

Can we not learn from the several dozen other democracies with both lower prison populations and lower overall crime rates? I'm curious how the US is so unique in this regard.

chmod775 6y ago
> I'm curious how the US is so unique in this regard. Culture, policing attitude, guns and the fact that the only thing lesser than the training US police officers receive is the bar to becoming one. In most western countries becoming a police officer is a multi-year selective process, with lots and lots of training for conflict resolution, lessons on psychology, and of course the law. In the US you can be let loose on the streets in as little as 3 months. Then once you're past the street level, the US also imposes much higher sentences on average, and punishment continues even after your sentence is served - by marking you as a felon for the rest of your life and locking you out of many opportunities for leading a normal life. Hello to high recidivism rates. The prison term itself, the punishment, is also just that: punishment. Prison conditions are inhumane. If you treat humans as something lesser, they will behave accordingly. That's the rough picture.
- vmception 6y ago
  The “guns” thing is annoying, because they are so easily accessible that means collective punishment of escalating force for the rest of us at all times because we could have a gun
  - Vecr 6y ago
    "The rest of us"? I'd prefer the police discuss among themselves the rare cases where someone did not have a gun, regardless of race.
    - vmception 6y ago
      In my world it would not be rare for people to not have a gun It should be obvious that I wouldn’t know with concealed carry But on the legal concealed carry side, getting that approved is extremely rare. All the densely populated counties are like that, in the whole country.